Hi all,
I have a vexing problem with the AutoComplete function when
addressing emails. Basically, I never get autocomplete suggestions,
except in very specific circumstances. Here's the situation:

I'm running Outlook 2003 in a corporate setting. The email servers
are exchange servers. I have a global address list that encompasses
all the employees of my corporation - a very massive list.
There are about 5 people that I regularly send email to, and I would
like them to pop up with autocomplete as soon as I begin typing their
names. Under Tools/Options/EmailOptions/Advanced Email Options I
already have "Automatic Name Checking" and "Suggest Names while
completing to, cc, and bcc fields" selected. As it stands now, I get
no autcomplete suggestions ever, unless I do the following (suggested
A href="http://ask-leo.com/
where_do_outlooks_autocomplete_suggestions_come_fr om.html" here/
A ):

Draft New Email
In the To: field, type the last name of the person.
Click outside the To: box and wait until a squiggly red line appears
under the name.
Right click the red squiggly line and select the correct person.
Close the email.

After I do this, I get autocomplete functionality for that individual,
but only until I close outlook. the next time I open outlook, I have
to repeat the process, which is a pain.

I understand that Outlook 2003 maintains a file called
profilename.NK2 in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application
Data\Microsoft\Outlook that contains the nickname list. I have tried
to follow the instructions A href="http://support.microsoft.com/?
kbid=287623"here/A, deleting the old, possibly corrupt .NK2 file so
that outlook would generate a new one, only to discover that there are
no .NK2 files on my hard disk. Very strange. I tried searching
for .NK2 files with outlook running and with outlook closed - no
results either way.

Any thoughts out there?

chadwick wrote:

Draft New Email
In the To: field, type the last name of the person.
Click outside the To: box and wait until a squiggly red line appears
under the name.
Right click the red squiggly line and select the correct person.
Close the email.

You can also just type the last name and press CTRL-K, instead of clicking
out of the To field.

After I do this, I get autocomplete functionality for that individual,
but only until I close outlook. the next time I open outlook, I have
to repeat the process, which is a pain.

This is a sign of a damaged mail profile. Creating a new one with Control
Panel's Mail applet, then renaming the existing NK2 file to match its name
to the new profile's name usually fixes the problem. Of course, you can
also let Outlook start over with the name cache and create a new NK2 file.
--
Brian Tillman